B.J. Upton's slam helps James Shields, Rays rout Red Sox

Shields came within two outs of his 12th complete game this season, B.J. Upton hit his first grand slam and the Rays routed the fading Boston Red Sox 9-1 on Sunday.

Tampa Bay moved within 3½ games of the AL wild card leaders, sweeping the three-game series to go a season-high 17 games over .500 at 81-64. The Rays have won 21 games in a row when scoring five runs or more.

"We needed to win these," manager Joe Maddon said. "There's no other way to look at it. Under the circumstances, you've got to do what we did or it's pretty much almost impossible to recover. Our guys believe we can do this. It's truly not impossible."

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Tampa Bay was 10 games behind the New York Yankees in the wild-card standings on Aug. 7.

Boston has lost five consecutive games, its longest skid since opening the season 0-6, and nine of 11 overall. The teams play each other four more times, in a four-game series beginning Thursday night at Fenway Park.

"We're kind of in a fight right now, we know that," Red Sox manager Terry Francona said about his team's recent play. "It's not real pretty. We'll come out and fight, and hopefully play better. I always feel like we're going to play well and when we don't, we're going to fix it. I still feel that way."

Shields (15-10), who has won four consecutive starts en route to his career-best 15th win, allowed seven hits over 8 1/3 innings. Coming off a 5-1 complete-game victory over Texas last Monday, the right-hander was replaced by Dane De La Rosa after issuing a one-out walk in the ninth on his 121st pitch.

"We're back in the hunt," Shields said. "They know that we're right behind them."

The Rays went up 8-1 on Upton's 20th homer in the fifth off Matt Albers.

Upton finished with four hits and walked once. He and his brother Justin of the Arizona Diamondbacks became the first set of siblings in major league history to both have 20 homers and 20 stolen bases in the same season.

"Couldn't ask for a better day," B.J. Upton said.

Jon Lester (15-7) gave up four runs and eight hits over four innings for the Red Sox. Boston starting pitchers have gone five innings or less in nine of the last 11 games.